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I slung the spirit sword, messily wrapped round and round in vines, over my shoulder.

Nodding when no rejection reaction came after I thought, “This should do it,” I finally relaxed as if I could breathe again.

After parting with Rachel, I first began moving in search of the spirit sword I had kicked away.

Then, the moment I found my target, I kicked it toward the forest again.

By repeating that, I advanced farther and farther north.

Fortunately, there had been no pursuit, so I reached the forest safely without incident. To carry the spirit sword, I wandered through the forest looking for vines, and the plant-based scabbard I had just shouldered was the finished result.

“What now?”

Once I caught my breath, I considered my next move.

It would be a problem if the spirit sword I had gone to the trouble of taking back was found again.

In that case, I needed to throw it away somewhere far from here, and to keep it from falling into the hands of the Furon Council-State as it advanced north, I would have to move a fairly considerable distance.

The problem was that I had lost my luggage and gone back to a life of cooking things directly over an open flame.

(No, that’s a problem too, but… I don’t need to worry about that anymore.)

The next issue was the possibility that I might drop the spirit sword the next time I lost my reason.

At any rate, getting away from this place came first.

While checking to make sure the spirit sword slung over my shoulder would not fall, I increased my speed and ran north.

Perhaps because this area was hard to run through, there were accidents where the spirit sword struck trees and snapped the vines, but if I ran without rest, I could reach roughly the central part of the forest in a single day.

Since I had run for an entire day, I wondered whether I should rest, but I no longer needed anything like that.

Whether it was impossible or reckless, this body had been made capable of doing it.

If I could move without drinking or eating, then now was the time to move.

Less than two days had passed since I last lost my reason, so there should still have been time to spare, but there were any number of reasons to worry.

There was no guarantee things would continue as they had until now, and it was also possible to predict that the interval would shorten as time passed.

However, I also had enough grounds to think it would not suddenly become extremely short, and because I had gained even a slight margin, I was able to move calmly like this.

To ensure the spirit sword never fell into her hands again, I had to move farther north.

If possible, somewhere beyond human reach would be best.

As I continued north like that, familiar terrain appeared before me.

“…Damn it. Did I go too far?”

What lay before my eyes was unmistakably a road—in other words, it seemed I had come all the way to the Kingdom of Canaan.

I had absolutely no intention of returning it to Canaan, so I turned on my heel and went back the way I had come.

It was a path I had only just created, but because of this giant body, places I had passed through for the first time were unexpectedly easy to identify.

Here, I thought things over.

Canaan probably no longer had any leeway to advance south.

Seizeria intended to develop the west, and preparations for that were already moving forward.

In Einhel, the elves had no interest in expanding their territory to begin with. They had apparently declared ownership of the forest, but internal disputes had left them unable to move.

And the problem, Furon, was in the middle of assembling its army and advancing north.

(Thinking about it this way, hiding the spirit sword somewhere around the northwest of the former Imperial territory would be best, right?)

For a moment, I considered just handing it over to the elves… but I had no obligation to go that far.

If I considered what might happen if other test subjects I had failed to find woke up, handing it over was not entirely out of the question.

However, as an Imperial citizen, I ought to respect the will of those who awakened. It went without saying which side I should favor, and after shaking my head to reject my earlier thought, I decided to search for a place to hide the spirit sword.

There was also the possibility of the Council-State and the Republic clashing, so hiding it was probably the correct answer after all.

“In that case, the problem is… its presence.”

The indescribable pressure of the spirit sword was something even I could sense.

As long as this presence existed, its existence would be exposed if someone got reasonably close.

Furthermore, I had to take into account the possibility that some method of detecting it existed, so there was a risk it would be found if I hid it somewhere half-baked.

When I thought about it this way, the conditions were rather strict.

I began to feel that simply looking around the forest would not be enough.

In that case, I searched my memory for any suitable place in this area.

After standing still for a while, one place came to mind.

“Should I dig it up?”

I muttered as I remembered the research facility where the spider man had been buried.

Positionally, it was not ideal, but it was located in the northwest of the former Imperial territory, and apart from being a little too far to the west, it matched nearly all the conditions.

The problem was that it was buried.

If I could somehow manage even just the vertical shaft, it would save far more time than digging a hole from scratch, and given its current state, it should also have the advantage of being hard to find.

After that, I listed as many advantages and disadvantages as I could think of, and I began to feel that, under the present circumstances, it would be the hiding place most suited to my goal.

“…Let’s do it.”

Once I decided what to do next, I moved immediately.

Since I knew the place from memory, I should have been able to reach my destination without issue.

That was what I thought, but… it ended up taking a little more effort than expected.

I thought it would be safest to move along the river, but I found a group of elves and had to move slowly in Stealth Mode so they would not notice me. That was the main reason.

I did not see any familiar faces, so they probably were not people connected to the Forshna Clan, but if they were operating on this side, could they have been members of the Zesat group?

Because I was sneaking around while trying to hide the spirit sword on my shoulder, it took time, but I was able to reach my destination safely.

Since the entire aboveground portion of the facility had become a mountain of rubble, I first had to confirm the location of the elevator leading underground.

For the moment, I placed the spirit sword wrapped round and round in vines somewhere suitable and immediately began clearing away the rubble.

Before long, I found the place where the elevator leading underground had been, but when I removed the surrounding rubble, more and more of it collapsed like an avalanche and returned everything to its original state.

It seemed I needed to stop cutting corners and remove it properly from the top, in order.

With no other choice, I climbed the mountain of rubble, only for my foot to sink deeply into the collapsed debris.

I paused for a moment, took a deep breath—and flipped the rubble over with all my strength.

Now that I thought about it, I was a physical monster.

Carefully removing things was not my only option. Destruction was an option too.

Realizing that, I began breaking through the mountain of rubble as though pushing it apart.

Sometimes I kicked pieces away, scattering noise all around as I rapidly reduced the amount of rubble.

After that rampage continued for a while, what I found was the elevator door.

From here on, I would have to clear the surroundings before working so that the collapsed rubble would not fall into the vertical shaft.

If possible, I wanted to make maximum use of this depth.

However, considering the amount of rubble that had fallen in and the depth I could clear out, about half would probably be the limit.

At this point, I shifted my gaze toward the spirit sword I would drop into the vertical shaft.

There, I saw the spirit sword, its blade almost completely buried under rubble and fragments sent flying because I had been carelessly rampaging.

“What am I doing?” I muttered, scratching my head as I headed over there, when a voice suddenly rang out.

“I finally found you!”

I turned around reflexively, and there stood my old erotic-book comrade… or rather, Klaze-kun of the Forshna Clan.

The question “Why is he here?” crossed my mind, but knowing him, it was surely another erotic-related matter.

Very well, I shall hear you out as a parting gift before you go to the afterlife—normally, I would have nodded along like that.

But right now, I was in the middle of hiding the spirit sword.

I could not let him learn this place, so I chose to drive him away.

“I finally met someone I can boast to about this.”

As he said that, he took out three sheets of paper in a needlessly cool manner.

The moment they entered my sight, my hand, which had been about to drive him away, stopped.

Klaze pointed the papers in his hand toward me as if showing them off, then gave a grin.

“That is…”

“Yes, I did it. I completed them.”

When I received the papers from the nodding Klaze, I could not help staring at them.

Yes, the three sheets of paper were unmistakably photographs.

The texture of the paper was different from what I knew, but the images projected onto them could undoubtedly be called photographs.

As for their contents… they were all women.

Moreover, two of them were Ashiru, also known as Useless Boobs.

The first was an ordinary shot taken from the front, but I wanted an explanation for the other one because I could not understand the situation.

It looked like “a slightly dirty, topless Useless Boobs being slapped in the breasts by a woman,” but what on earth was the situation when this photograph had been taken?

The final one was a woman I did not know, but since her gaze was not directed this way, I could tell it was a voyeur shot.

“Page of Reminiscence…”

Klaze-kun tilted his head at my mutter.

Since I had already said it aloud, there was no helping it, so when I explained the magic item I had acquired, he looked frustrated and said, “So there was a pioneer.”

Or rather, if he had developed this alone, did that not mean he was a very capable person?

And yet someone like him was at the bottom of his clan. The world was a harsh place.

Incidentally, the contents of the second photograph were apparently “a scene where Ashiru, who had been ordered to do laundry, started doing it with her feet partway through, only for the returning tutor to knock her down, then scold her when she took off her dirty, mud-stained clothes and tried to toss them straight into the laundry, and when she straightened her back while topless, she got slapped in the breasts.”

I was relieved to see that Useless Boobs was the same as ever.

I had unintentionally fallen into a friendly mood, but now was not the time for that.

Once his business was finished, I tried to have him leave at once, but apparently he still had something to say.

“The first matter was just me boasting, but there’s one more thing. Do you remember the man who was like an attendant to our… ah, to Miss Rushel? I have a message from him.”

When he mentioned the man beside Number Six, I remembered the guy whose name I did not know and whom I only vaguely recalled, the one who had not even tried to hide his wariness toward me.

“I believe it was, ‘The time has come to fulfill the promise.’”

“Promise?”

I could understand Number Six, but I had no memory of making any promise with a guy.

Had something happened? I tried hard to remember, but all I could do was tilt my head.

As I stood there groaning with my arms crossed, Klaze-kun held out more photographs.

“I still have plenty more things I want to boast about.”

“No, this is obviously voyeur photography, isn’t it?”

Apparently, because it was a new technology, laws had not been established yet, and I was being swept up in the pace of this man who was doing whatever he pleased.

I understood very well that if you let a hobbyist talk, it would take a long time… but now, what should I do about this?

The sky I looked up at was still blue.

Ah, stop on that photograph of Number Six.

It doesn’t show much skin, but the angle is somehow nice.

Can you make copies?